The Blacksmith God
by herrDoktorat
Summary: Aries Mu returns to find an unsettling presence in his temple. From there, the Sanctuary has to deal with a new fire.
1. Embers In The Wind

This is a present for my dear friend, **Arietide**.

* * *

Aries Mu gazed at his temple warily. For some time now, even in the distant reaches of Jamir, he had been sensing a strange, dreadful Cosmo coming from the Sanctuary. Were his master alive, he could have have advised the Aries Saint, for disaster neared the place constantly. Unfortunately, the man had long since passed. Mu had only himself to count on, himself and maybe one other. The old master _was_ an option, but one too far for comfort.

Kiki was charged with guarding the Aries Temple in his brief absence, and could be in danger. That alone was the reason the Aries Saint teleported as near the Sanctuary as he possibly could, and quickly ascended the stairways.

Now that he had arrived, however, he could not bring himself to enter. _What is this?_ he thought, teeth clenched, his own gold cloth trembling as if under pressure. Yet underneath the fire and the dread there was grief, and also... something familiar. Not anything he'd known in this life, but something the stars inside him recognized.

Mu glanced skyward. The clock was not lit; the Sanctuary was safe. This meant he had time, and therefore options.

Kiki was in the temple somewhere. Mu could feel his faint presence, but the hostile Cosmo, which he now realized was also coming from inside there, was interfering. Was his pupil the target? Mu had heard tales of persecution conducted against his kind, but to attack a boy inside a sacred place was unheard of. If they were powerful enough to enter the Sanctuary unhindered, then the village was no longer safe.

_Kiki,_ he called out through telepathy.

There was no response.

_Kiki, can you hear me?_

Nothing.

"The boy is unconscious,"he whispered to the winds, now worried beyond belief, though only a slight widening of his eyes would have betrayed the emotion. This left him with one other option save charging him, as Aldebaran would undoubtedly have done before anyone else could stop him. Mu was far too cautious for that, but he envied his friends in that respect; their steps always reached farther than his.

Mu hated doing this, but he had no choice. With a deep breath, the Aries Saint closed his eyes, and his senses spread throughout the Sanctuary, or so they were supposed to. In truth, he could barely see past the door to his own temple. No matter. The important thing was Kiki, whose presence indicated he was halfway through the temple. There was a strange quality to his Cosmo, but Mu had no time to worry. Quietly apologizing, he sent his consciousness forward, toward his apprentice, toward his mind, breaching every lock he could find.

Memories.

Not anything grand, but each and every one meaningful.

_A kind smile._

_A warm hand._

_A soft touch._

_A loving embrace._

One after another, memories infused with overwhelming happiness went through his consciousness. Despite having cared for Kiki since the boy was a toddler, only later did the Aries Saint realize that each and every memory was of him.

Then, there was fire. The flames engulfed everything, burned away the happiness he briefly felt. Though there was a comforting warmth to this fire, it burned with unimaginable sorrow, so great it would have persisted for a thousand lifetimes.

When he came to his senses, Mu was standing inside the temple, face to face with the fiery-haired child he so treasured—except the boy was not looking at him, and fiery was more apt a description than ever before.

Next, a booming voice reverberated throughout the whole temple:

"Who dares intrude my mind?" it asked, and Mu realized, too late he realized, that the voice was coming from his boy.

"The gold saint, Aries Mu," he answered evenly, supressing the urge to take one or several steps back, struggling to keep his back straight and his head high.

The embers that left his hair were carried by the wind. The boy lowered his head, and his stare should have sent every piece of the Aries Cloth flying.

Instead, he smiled.

"Not one, but two," he said, his nose reddened, tears in his eyes. "Your kind yet lives."

Aries Mu immediately kneeled. Realization hit him as though he was awakening to a ninth sense. The enormous Cosmo, the sadness, the familiarity...

"Lord Hephaestus," he said, it was all he could bring himself to say, for he was speaking to a god.

Mu saw reflected in the spotless marble floor a smile covered in snot, tears drippling to the floor as Hephaestus walked towards him.

"I made you with these hands," said Lord Hephaestus, brushing his hand against Mu's cheek in trained, precise movements that undoubtedly belonged to a master smith, "but the gods feared you, and wiped you out. Now only two remain, in every generation."

Hephaestus snorted and cleaned his face on his sleeve. Mu allowed himself a smile; he was not that different from Kiki, all things considered.

The thought immediately brought him back to his senses.

"Raise your head," said Hephaestus, not an order but a request, one Mu was quick to comply.

"Lord Hephaestus," the Aries Saint started, "before we continue, I must know what is to become of my pupil, now that you are here."

"Kiki sleeps within me," he answered. "I do not intend to rob you of your child."

Mu decided he would have to be satisfied with that for the time being. "Our numbers are dwindling," he then said, "but there are more than two."

"Yes," said Hephaestus with a curt nod, no surprise whatsoever in his voice, "but they are not allowed near forges. _One master and one apprentice, only two may know a fraction the craft that led to their extinction._"

Mu tried to imagine for a moment, an Earth where his people thrived, repairing and perhaps even forging cloths for Athena, and shuddered. The gods had a reason to fear them.

"You've done the impossible," said Hephaestus, gazing upwards at something only he could see. "You breached the Wailing Wall, and with Hades dead, escaped your fate."

Hephaestus turned to look at him.

"I have a request, Aries Mu," said Hephaestus, his hair burning with ferocious intensity, his eyes each a stoked forge; then, a grin. "I want to spend some time among you lot."


	2. Searing Red

Thank you for the kind reviews. I write this for **you**.

* * *

In a place as immaculate as the Virgo Temple, there were no visitors, only passersby. Where they went depended on their manners. They could proceed past the Virgo Saint, or be sent to the next life. Either way, no one stayed... but some tried.

Every once in a while, during his meditation hours, the boy would come and politely ask to join him. Virgo Shaka had a hard time declining. Though he was loath to admit it, he enjoyed the company. The boy tried his best, knowing that that the Virgo Saint would be pleased should he succeed, but his mind would wander; he never lasted more than two hours. Shaka tried to explain that he should find his own pace, but the boy was determined to keep up with him, and somehow, even though such a thing should have been a distraction, the man closest to the gods found it easier to concentrate with the boy at his side.

With its guardian meditating and therefore unavailable for most of the day, one would think none would manage to cross the Virgo Temple. Not so. In time, a ritual had been devised. Rather than merely asking for passage, anyone who wished to cross needed to approach the altar, bow before the Buddha, and raise their Cosmo slightly; the Virgo Saint would then respond in kind, an act that required neither thought nor intent. Only an evil heart would flinch.

(Or so he told his fellows. In truth, any enemy would instinctively raise their Cosmo in reaction to his.)

The boy, of course, always followed the ritual, even though he wished not to pass but to stay. This time, however, the Virgo Saint had felt something slightly different about his Cosmo, a fire that was not there before, a fire that vanished as soon as the boy smiled at him.

Now, after nearly four hours of perfect meditation, Virgo Shaka felt that fire spike, and turned his head slightly to the side.

As per tradition, the Virgo Saint had foregone his sight in order to heighten his senses, but he was not blind. Where others saw shapes and features, he saw colors and feelings, and right now, he was seeing a searing red.

There was only one other person in the world with such an intense presence, yet despite the similarities, the Virgo Saint found that the two of them were as though black and white. Where _she_ hid a core of steel beneath layers and layers of compassion, _he_ hid anguish amidst his deceptive anger and quiet resolve.

Virgo Shaka opened his eyes. The searing red was a crying little boy.

Kiki tried to steady his breath, but the tears kept streaming out of his eyes like a cracked dam. Shaka, who had never known comforting words, only harsh truths, was at a loss.

"Did he hurt you?" he asked in what he hoped was a steady tone. _When did a god take you as host? More importantly, _which_ god?_

In response, the boy gritted his teeth and wiped his tears, over and over and over, until his eyes were dry and his face was red. Eventually, he shook his head. "No," he said firmly, not even the slightest crack in his voice, though only for that word alone; everything he'd say from then on would come between loud sobs.

There were a great many questions the Virgo Saint wanted to ask, but very few he should. I can talk to Mu later, he reminded himself.

"What were you trying to do?" he tried.

"I thought that... that there ought to be a way for me to understand him better..."

Understand him better? What was he saying?

Kiki sniffed hard. "And y-you told me this one time that you talked with Buddha every time you m-meditated, so I decided to give it a go."

_Where there is sadness, there is joy, and the contrary is also true. Beautiful flowers bloom, but eventually they wither._

Shaka blinked.

"I asked m-my master, but this host thing is really complicated," the boy continued, ignorant to how unsettled the Virgo Saint suddenly was. "I know he's in here," he pointed to his head, "but we can't t-talk to each other. We can take turns with the body and pass notes, um, that's pretty fun, but there's only so much he can tell me that way, and besides, it r-really tires us out."

The urge to ask those questions was rising.

"I see," said Shaka. "Did you succeed?"

"I guess?" Kiki was starting to breathe normally now. The sobs were gone, and he was biting his lower lip, forming what he probably envisioned as a thoughtful expression. "I didn't get to talk to him, but he shared his feelings with me. I shared mine with him too!"

Why would a god be so friendly with his host? Why would a god pick a mortal child as his host, even one apprentice to a gold saint? Was this a ploy to get close to Athena?

Shaka closed his eyes. The searing red was gone, but not the fire. What the boy had seemingly tried to hide when he came to meditate was now plain for all to see. What the Virgo Saint had seen was their barest emotions, and he had to remind himself that there was not a smidgen of evil intent in them.

There was only one thing left to confirm...

"Raise your Cosmo," he requested, and though surprised, the boy complied.

Rather than the raging inferno the Virgo Saint had expected or the blinding fury he had seen once before, the Cosmo that rose behind and around the boy was quiet and contained, orange on scorched black, embers rising from the cracks.

"Hephaestus," said the Virgo Saint, a faint smile gracing his face.

The boy nearly jumped to his feet, his impressive Cosmo gone in a flash. "Huh? How'd you know?"

Shaka did not deign to answer. Instead, he tried something new. The man closest to the gods reached out and pulled the boy closer. "Kiki, you have done well."

Kiki was obviously not sure what he'd done to earn praise, but he beamed all the same; and somewhere deep inside him, perhaps the blacksmith god allowed himself a grin.

"Now, you must speak to Athena."


	3. Hearth And Home

The final chapter. Thank you for waiting.

* * *

The boy walked across the temple in small, careful steps, his face a cracked mask, every movement a far cry from his usual demeanor. Kiki had assisted his master and the other Saints many times in the past, but in the chaos that followed her ascension as a goddess, he'd had very few opportunities to speak to Miss Saori, and never inside her own Temple, past every other.

There, on the path underneath her very statue, he was learning how her world really worked in ways that none of the Gold Saints could explain to him. For one, he'd walked past several handmaidens, which he never knew Athena had. The Cosmo she sent forth from her temple was always so lonely, that he thought there couldn't be anyone else up there with her, but maybe that was due to her worries.

Every single handmaiden had bowed to him, their faces betraying no emotions, their Cosmo a peaceful lake under the stars. There had been rumors of female Saints who'd obey and protect only Athena, rather than the Sanctuary or peace on earth, but Kiki had thought them outlandish, even for his standards. Now, though...

The boy sighed. Those thoughts were just distractions from what was to come. There was only one door separating him from Athena now: the door to her quarters. No Saint had ever gone in there.

Well, maybe that wasn't strictly true. The previous Pope had certainly gone in there to murder her, and more recently, there was Seiya, and maybe Miss Shaina too.

Kiki allowed himself a smirk, and with his heart light, opened the door.

Athena was certainly different from Miss Saori. The latter, as the boy had known her, was haughty and stubborn to a fault, hiding her compassion, insecurities and indecisiveness behind anything and everything she could. Kiki had sneaked into her room, once, and felt he'd walked right into a palace.

_This_ room, by comparison, was bare.

Everything in there was white and untouched. The room might have belonged to Athena, but there was nothing in there that was hers, save for a lone golden statue in the bedstand. Athena herself was sitting in a fancy chair. With her short brown hair swaying in the wind, she looked right at home while simultaneously completely out of place.

Kiki realized he'd been staring at the room for entirely too long, and hurried to Athena, kneeling before his godddess while trying to subdue the inexplicable sadness he suddenly felt inside.

The goddess Athena rose from her chair, high and wise and powerful, and then sat on the spotless marble floor, right in front of him. She lightly brushed her fingers against his cheek, then gently raised his chin, so they could look each other in the eye. That was when he realized.

Miss Saori had always been a goddess.

* * *

As the boy entered her room, the goddess Athena breathed a sigh of relief. This boy, the boy whose arrival she had been dreading, the boy whose Cosmo had made her tremble as he approached, whose flames could burn her sanctuary to the ground... his smile told her that those were not flames meant to burn her, but a warmth to shield her from the rain.

Perhaps the battle against Hades had worn her down, for her to be so guarded against one as loyal to her as that child, and the god he carried within.

"Hephaestus," she said, knowing that the boy would be asleep once he raised his head.

"My sister," said Hephaestus.

Not once since truly awakening to her godhood had Athena experienced so many memories, her countless human lifetimes flashing before her eyes, into a past so distant even the gods themselves referred to it as the Age of Myth, her last battle with an immortal body, but before she could even find the words, the blacksmith god spoke.

"The gods are angry," he said.

"Our father Zeus promised that none would interfere as long as we settled our disputes through our power and our armies," she said, annoyed that she had to once again discuss the fate of the Earth as though it were a big playground.

Hephaestus shared her discomfort. "Yes," he said, his composed expression turning into a bitter smile which Athena almost wished to mimic, "and we all know how good Father is with promises."

Athena closed her eyes for a moment, contemplating the possibilities. The Sanctuary could not possibly stand against the might of Olympus should they decide to wage war, but most likely Zeus would settle for a display of force instead, and were that the case, she could...

"There is more," Hephaestus said, interrupting her thoughts. "Hades being defeated was one thing, but they are also upset that Poseidon helped your Saints."

"The Greatest Eclipse would have ruined his seas, surely that is reason enough to..."

"Not to mention what you did to bring some of them back," he finished, and to this, she had no argument.

"They think Poseidon and I have joined forces to take over Olympus," Athena said, her mouth set in a grim line.

Hephaestus simply nodded.

"Did you come here only to deliver this warning?" she asked.

"I am no messenger, Athena," Hephaestus answered.

Then:

"Do you remember how the first holy war started?"

_The earth sunk as the blood of thousands _

_Tinged red oceans and skies alike _

_Screams were lost in the howling wind_

_As the Sea King watched from his throne_

_Pain that he would know in time_

"Yes," she said, quietly averting her gaze. The memory was clear in his eyes, more vivid than even her mind could make, but he waited for her to say it all the same. "The gods sunk the continent of Mu, out of fear that its people surpass even your abilities as a smith."

"In time, they would have," he declared proudly. "Poseidon has his Cyclopes and Hades had the Hekatonkheires, but none compared to my children."

"Hephaestus..." she started, but he ignored her.

"Mortals that live as gods should be punished," he continued. "That was something Zeus said to me, back then. What those fools truly feared was—"

"I know."

"My children now live and die as birds in a gilded cage," he said, and she winced. "Except for two."

"What do you mean to do?"

"I mean to thank you, my sister."

Hephaestus lowered his gaze as Athena raised hers, sorrow and surprise interwoven.

"Olympus is as you remember," he continued, "a place of false warmth, where we gods discuss how to toy with the lives of mortals, and our own. Were not for your efforts, my children would have been completely destroyed."

Athena considered what to say as she watched the dwindling embers, his fiery hair a hearth more comforting than any she had ever known. Though she could remember all of her lives, the one she led as a goddess was but a distant speck in the cosmos, eons that felt lesser than even a single day as a human. Yet, she remembered Hephaestus. Not fondly, for there was a time he... well, that mattered very little now. The mind is a plaything of the body, she reminded herself, and his body was that of a child, drowning in remembrance of the forgotten. Yes, she remembered Hephaestus, and his people; the decision being made to wipe them out, and his desperate pleas to the contrary; and the pristine marble floor of the Olympus, reflecting her displeased expression and quiet determination, for that was but the beginning.

"What do you mean to do, Hephaestus?" she asked again. More war, more death... this she could see in the future, but not within her brother's fire.

"I mean to stay," he said simply, confirming her suspicions.

"You would do this to a boy?" she asked, her voice pleading, but Hephaestus scoffed.

"Do you not use children as soldiers in your battles?" he asked, and the fire raged within once more. Four Saintias came forth from the shadows, but Athena raised her Cosmo. The budding flame in the clock was extinguished.

"Calm yourself," she commanded, not only Hephaestus but the Sanctuary as a whole.

"The boy wants this," he said.

Athena grimaced.

"Does he have that choice, still?" she asked.

Hephaestus averted his gaze.

Saori Kido bit her lip. There was something different about the fiery Cosmo coming from Kiki, something that arose only when he snapped back at her... or perhaps the real change had come from her own understanding? She didn't know. The thought made her smile, briefly. Once, not knowing would have meant the end. Now, it was just one of the many little things that drove back the voice in the furthest corners of her mind, the one that whispered that she wasn't really human.

Regardless, there was a change.

The raging fire, a searing inferno that she feared would burn everything down, made her once again feel vulnerable, but not because it was so great. Rather, when raising her own Cosmo, she realized that she could extinguish it as easily as the flames of the clock. There was a determined but terrified child underneath it all, this she knew. What she didn't know, not before his little outburst, was that this child both was and wasn't Kiki.

"When you descended to the Sanctuary, you'd already made that choice for him," she said, raising her Cosmo once more. "You took him as your host, and made it there was no way to undo it."

Hephaestus had no response.

Saori signaled her Saintias, who raised their Cosmo in turn.

"You were wrong," she said, and now she was more Saori than Athena. "There is always a way. I will smother your fire with my Cosmo, and make it so you can never return."

The Sanctuary trembled as all twelve flames burned, suddenly and intensely. Rose petals were carried in by the wind. The distant stars seemed to shine brighter. With a flourish of her hand, the golden statue by her bedside became Niké. Saori was ready. Athena was ready. Now, the raging inferno was but candlelight.

"Wait!" he cried as she brought down her staff, her face stone. "Miss Saori, please wait!"

Niké an inch away from his forehead, she stopped. In the Sanctuary, silence.

Kiki was sweating, eyes creased and brows furrowed, mouth quivering and arms wide open as though he was protecting a charge.

"Kiki, you know what he did," she said, almost a warning.

"I know," he said. "I mean, I already knew."

Saori blinked.

"Hephaestus apologized to me, back when he took my body," he explained.

"No matter how benevolent, being host to a god erodes your soul," she said, "There is no way for you to coexist, not permanently."

"There _is_ a way," he insisted, and suddenly Saori found herself facing her own words.

Cautiously, she lowered Niké.

"Miss Saori, he's hurting. There were things he wanted to say to you, but he couldn't. This conversation kinda got away from him, and he's sorry."

Not for the first time, Saori wondered how could one Cosmo be so many things at once. Once his fiery Cosmo seemed insurmountable, but very fragile. Now, she could feel why: eons of emotions, unstable, uncertain, unpredictable. Conflicting, and most of all _human._

"You can talk to him?" she asked, more out of curiosity than any sort of purpose.

"No... well, maybe. I couldn't before, but now I can feel what he's feeling without really trying, so maybe we can talk. A-Anyway, the thing is, there is a way for him to stay inside me without drowning me out."

Kiki called Saori closer to him, and she consented. Then, he whispered:

"That was a pun, 'cause he got the idea from Poseidon."

Saori couldn't help but giggle. Only a little bit, though.

Poseidon. When he helped her during the battle against Hades, she thought she had felt something, and now she could name it: his Cosmo was as though a peaceful lake, rather than a furious ocean. There was something beneath the surface, and that something was the source of his power, but that power didn't comprehensively account for his being, and it would have, previously.

"Poseidon helped out in the end, right? I mean, you probably wondered how he escaped your seal."

(In truth, she hadn't, partly because the gods somehow escaping her seals was almost old news, but also because she was too busy saving the world, and then Seiya.)

"Poseidon chooses his hosts based on a connection he has to them, and when you sealed him back, that connection remained. I think probably his other hosts all died whenever he was sealed, but because that whole thing with him was so complicated this time around, it didn't happen."

"What are you getting at?" she asked, trying to hurry him along. Athena didn't want to hear another word about Poseidon and frankly, neither did Saori.

"Right. I guess the point is, the amphora was leaking. Poseidon was returning to his host, but unlike last time, only his soul. The brunt of his power is still sealed."

"Kiki," she said. Not that she didn't want to listen to him, and she did understand how they might coexist, now, but hearing the ramblings of a little boy was not doing any favors to her increasingly diminished determination to show Hephaestus the door, so to speak. "Hephaestus could have simply reincarnated as a human," she continued, "he didn't need to use you as a host. The burden of a Saint alone is too great for anyone to bear."

Kiki started fidgeting, which meant her words were getting to him. Good. Now she just needed to—

"Hephaestus said he wanted to see us."

Kiki suddenly looked very small.

"Miss Saori, you're not like the other Athenas who just stuck seals to everything and carried on."

"How _dare_—" one of the Saintias interjected, but Saori shot her down with a look.

"I know you want to do the right thing," he continued, "and yeah, I know being a god isn't easy, and that him being here, and being me, will bring a lot of problems, both to me and to you, but... but I feel like this is something no one else can do, and something that _we_ can do. We can handle it. _I_ can handle it. I won't be alone, and he doesn't want to be. The reason he didn't give me a choice was 'cause he thought I'd refuse, and he was scared."

_Athena._

Saori blinked away from from the intense expression Kiki was directing at her, and turned her head towards the faraway Aries Temple. _Mu?_

_My apprentice can be quite stubborn. I know not what you two discuss, but know that I stand by whatever decision comes to him._

Saori closed her eyes. There was no arguing with her Saints, especially not when what she arguing against was exactly what she stood for. Saori understood this, and if Kiki was so committed to it, then...

"Very well," she said, drawing for him a sigh of relief. "I know you two are not in sync yet, so, can you please bring him forth? I want to ask him a question."

Kiki nodded and closed his eyes. Not a moment of hesitation... This boy really was loyal to her. Saori hoped she would never stop being surprised by this sort of thing, never take for granted love and loyalty her Saints displayed.

Eventually, his hair started burning again, and he opened his eyes as Hephaestus.

"What do you mean to do?" she asked, for a third time.

"I mean to stay," he answered. This time, though, there was more: "I mean to slumber deep within his consciousness, to rest and experience life through his eyes, to see my children thrive as they have without meuntil he and I are one and the same, and my fire home."

Saori smiled, knowing peace would not come to her brother in any other way.

"Very well."


End file.
